How to Put Big Data to Work for Your Business

Big data is one of the latest buzzwords in the world of business. If you want to tap into this trend but aren’t sure how you can use data to improve your business, the following tips will help.

Keep It Simple When You Are Starting Out

Most businesses start looking into big data when they get a sense that they could be doing more with the data that they have gathered.

Today, there are more software programs than ever available that are designed to perform tasks such as mining data and conducting predictive analysis. When you first start looking at all of the data that your business has gathered, it can be a little bit overwhelming. Trying to figure out which metrics are the most valuable for your company can be confusing. Likewise, it can be difficult to determine if the quality of the data is adequate to support your goals and objectives. Trying to sort through everything to successfully use the data to your advantage can be both time-consuming and costly.

That is why most experts recommend starting small when it comes to looking at big data. Consider identifying a single analytic that you can use to begin boosting your business. Once you have that mastered, you can then look for other ways to leverage the data. Capita ITPS explains big data well in this post.

Know What Your Company Needs

Leveraging big data requires both speed and accuracy. Is your business up to the task? If you find that it takes longer than a day to analyze the data, you aren’t doing as well as you should be. Slow results can interfere with your company’s ability to act quickly when making key decisions.

This can be problematic if your competitors are already using big data to their advantage. From a business standpoint, it is important to get a handle on big data as quickly as possible if you want to stay competitive. Companies that utilize this type of data effectively are in a much better position to make informed decisions in the moment.

Don’t Pay For Data You Don’t Need

When starting out with big data, many companies go overboard, adding every report that they can think of to their analytics. From a development standpoint, these costs can quickly add up. A much better option is to limit the analysis to only the most relevant types of data, creating highly-targeted reports that provide actionable information. This can save both time and money.

Make the User Interface Effective and Easy To Understand

If you want managers to use the information on a regular basis, you need to make sure that it is easy for them to access. The best way to do this is by creating a user interface that is intuitive and attractively designed. A dashboard that makes it easy to look up reports or to visualize data will help ensure that the data is being put to good use.

Take the Advice of Experts in Big Data

Large enterprises can benefit from the expertise of companies that specialize in big data. They are far more likely to get good results by working with these companies rather than trying to do everything themselves.

Ray Kingman, the CEO of Semcasting, points out that today’s businesses are turning more and more to analytics to increase their ROI. This is particularly true for businesses such as high-volume retailers, tech companies, and businesses in the financial sector. These businesses are far more likely to succeed when they use tools that are designed to analyze data in a way that is both intuitive and efficient.

Kingman believes that tools that are used for analyzing big data are destined to become part of the overall workflow for many of these businesses, whether they are used for marketing, product development or sales.

Focus on the End Solution

Adobe’s Hadoop ecosystem has undergone a number of advancements over the years. However, it is still in its infancy in terms of actually being used in the business world rather than just in the lab. As more and more companies turn to big data, the framework is likely to continue its evolution.

It is unlikely that companies will be able to get a single program off the shelf that helps them both now and in the future with all of their Hadoop requirements. However, it is important to look toward the future when coming up with a plan for a project, keeping an eye on both scalability and extensibility.

The open-source nature of the Hadoop framework is driving innovation in terms of both scalability and durability. One of the primary benefits of this ecosystem is that transformations can be successfully ported across a variety of different Hadoop distributions.